Stephen Bryant

This year the 115th Prom season gets under way on the 17th July and kicks off with a programme of Stravinsky – Fireworks, Chabrier – Ode a la Musique, Tchaikovsky – Piano Concerto No 3 in E Flat Major, Poulenc – Concerto for Two Pianos, Elgar – In the South (Alassio), Brahms – Alto Rhapsody and Bruckner – Psalm 150 plus two intervals!

Even though I’ve taken part in about 140 Proms (to date!) I still get excited being part of this great annual event. As any Promenader worth his salt knows, the Proms are the world’s biggest music festival and were started back in 1895 by Henry Wood at the Queen’s Hall and then moved to the Royal Albert Hall in 1941 after the Queen’s Hall was damaged in an air raid. Although not always the easiest hall in which to play acoustically speaking, the Albert Hall is an aesthetically beautiful building steeped in tradition and atmosphere.

The Proms attract a huge selection of really top notch conductors and soloists but, for me, the best thing about the concerts is the audience. Prom audiences and the famous Promenaders are knowledgeable, informed, open minded and enthusiastic and since I’ve been doing the Proms for a long time now, I recognise many friendly faces each year!

Of course the BBC Symphony Orchestra is proud to play a major role in the Proms, including opening and closing the season with the First and Last Nights. This year I’ve tried to spread my share of the Proms more evenly over the season. So here are the Proms I’m doing this summer!

Prom 1 – 17th July

Programme as above – conducted by Jiri Belohlavek.

I last worked with Jiri, our Chief Conductor, at the end of May in an exciting performance of Mahler 5 which wrapped up our Barbican season until October. I’m looking forward, as always to working with him for the First Night of The Proms.

Prom 24 – 2nd August

Susanna Malkki conducts:

Ben Foskett – new work (BBC commission, world premiere)

Beethoven – Symphony No 4 in B flat major

Berlioz – Te Deum

There are some excellent women conductors around today in a profession that is still extremely male dominated, so it will be interesting to work with Susanna Malkki as I haven’t worked with her before. Also, Trinity Boys Choir are performing – my old school!

Prom 46 – 19th August

Semyon Bychkov conducts:

Detlev Glanert – Shoreless River

Rachmaninov – Rhapsody on a Theme of Pagannini

Shostakovich – Symphony No 11 ‘The Year 1905’

Last year the BBCSO did a Prom with Semyon Bychkov which many reckoned was among the best of our season. I haven’t worked with him since my days at the LPO so I’m looking forward to this concert featuring Shostakovich’s massive Symphony No 11!

Prom 57 – 28th August

David Robertson conducts:

Stravinsky – Agon

Tchaikovsky – Concert Fantasia in G Major Op 56

Variations on a Rococo Theme

Francesca da Rimini

This programme, with our Principal Guest Conductor David Robertson, includes Tchaikovsky’s Variations on a Rococo Theme with the very fine cellist Steven Isserlis and Stravinsky’s Agon which I have played at the Proms in the past and which has some fiendish violin solos.

Prom 63 – 2nd September

David Robertson conducts:

Xenakis – Numos gamma

Rachmaninov – The Isle of the Dead

Xenakis – Ais

Shostakovich – Symphony No 9 in E flat Major

David Robertson again, this time conducting two pieces by Xenakis sandwiched in between two of my favourite orchestral works – Shostakovich - 9th Symphony and Rachmaninov – The Isle of the Dead, where at the beginning you can hear Charon rowing his boat across the River Styx – much more reliable than the trains I believe! Two days later we’re taking this programme to Berlin to play in the Berlin Philharmonic Hall.

Prom 72 – 9th September

Jiri Belohlavek conducts:

Mendelssohn – A Midsummer Night’s Dream – Overture and Incidental Music

Augusta Read Thomas – Violin Concerto No 3 ‘Juggler in Paradise’

Beethoven – Symphony No 6 in F major ‘Pastoral’

This interesting programme includes the Augusta Read Thomas Violin Concerto which I don’t know at all but am looking forward to hearing!

I’m taking the Last Night of the Proms off this year as I’ve done it the previous two years! I have four days rest and then it’s on to Besancon and Montreaux with the orchestra for a week.

This letter, Time Out article and Strad review all relate to my performances of the Korngold Violin Concerto. In 1982, when I was at music college, a friend and myself were keen fans of Jascha Heifetz’ playing. One of my favourite recordings at that time was Heifetz playing the Korngold Violin Concerto with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and, having an urge to learn it I looked about for the music. I found that it wasn’t available in this country but, as luck would have it, my friend was going to visit his father in America and picked up the music there for me. On his return he bet me £10 that I wouldn’t be able to learn it in three weeks ready for a concerto competition at the Royal College of Music.

Spurred on by the money (I was a penniless student!) I managed to learn it for the competition and later that year performed it with the RCM Symphony Orchestra. To my great surprise I was informed by the Korngold Society that this was the first British performance of the piece. It was only later that the Korngold Violin Concerto started to be played and to gain in popularity – nowadays everyone plays it – then, nobody played it! I sent a recording of the performance to George Korngold, Erich Korngold’s son, and you can see his reply. Feeling a special affinity with this concerto I then went on to perform it many more times including two broadcast performances with the BBCSO in 1994 and 1998.

Film buffs at Friday’s free BBC concert may detect familiar strains in Korngold’s headily dreamy Violin Concerto. Themes from the ex-child prodigy’s film music, notably the Erroll Flynn costume comedy ‘The Prince and the Pauper’, are noticeable. ‘It sounds a bit duff put like that,’ syas the soloist Stephen Bryant, ‘but it’s cleverly fitted together.’

At ten the Moravian-born Korngold was called a genius by Mahler, at 13 acclaimed for a ballet. Today he’s remembered mainly for film scores (‘Robin Hood’, ‘Captain Blood’), and for the lush, sweet-sherry Violin Concerto.

Bryant was surprised to find he’d been given the British Première of it as a student. ‘I’d admired the Heifitz recording and a friend got me the music in America. Then he got irritated and bet me £10 I wouldn’t be able to learn it over Christmas for some concert trials at college.’ Bryant won the bet, inadvertently giving the first British performance of a swooningly Romantic work that leaves one wondering what little Erich Wolfgang might have achieved if he’d resisted the lure of tinseltown.

The concerts reviewed took place from April 9 to May 14

But the Korngold stands or falls by the performance of the soloist. Here it stood proudly. I thought it wiser not to remind myself of Heifetz or Perlman’s recording of the work before attending this concert, but there need have been no fears as to the youthful Stephen Bryant’s abilities. He proved a splendid soloist with a beautifully integrated tone, impeccable intonation, and sovereign technique. Perhaps his manner was a little cool, but that is all to the good in a work where self-indulgence could turn those luscious melodies sickly. Andrew Mikolajski…

Dear Mr. Bryant:

I know that my wife had written to tell you why I couldn’t answer your kind letter.

I have been home now for 6 weeks and am recuperating quiet well. Hence, I am finally able to take care of my correspondence.

Thank you for the very nice news about your upcoming performances of the Korngold Concerto. I am delighted that you are playing it, especially after listening to the cassette of your performances from 1982. Congratulations! You have a beautiful tone, play with great musicality and no need to say anything about the fine technique. I wish you all the best for a future career, which, is seems to me you will certainly achieve. (By the way, I shall inform the Scotland based “Korngold Society” that you gave the first performance. They thought the first performance was given by a young lady – her name escapes me – last year).

Unfortunately, due to the recent by-pass operation it seems rather unlikely that I would be in England at the time of your performances. I am sorry but I am sure you understand.

Did you know that Korngold wrote quite a bit of very worthwhile chamber music? You and your group might be interested. Schott is the publisher and there is a piano trio, 3 quartets, a sextet, a quintet, a suit for left hand piano and 2 violins and cello as well as a violin sonata.

Do let me hear from you again. I would be very interested to know how the performances went – especially your debut in London. If anyone makes a tape, I would love to hear it…

For now, kindest regards and best wishes.

Sincerely,

George Korngold

April 7, 1986